What is the best tool for a team of programmers to collaborate on a project?

Question

Me and some friends are starting a programming group as a hobby and we're looking for a way to easily collaborate.

Meaning, someone start working on the file, everyone on the team can see that he worked on the file, etc.

We need something that's fast, free and not necesarilly full of features, we are doing this as a hobby and not as a enterprise.

Thanks for the answers.

Answer 1

I would take a look at Google Code for Project Hosting.

Accessible SVN repository etc, can make collaboration easier.

Answer 2

Maybe git and a wiki would be good.

Answer 3

Any distributed source control system, like Git.

Also, a collaborative tool like Basecamp or ClockingIT with project management capabilities.

Answer 4

Try bitbucket. There are many code hosting offers; you didn't specify whether you require privacy, and whether you require hosting.

Answer 5

Personally I like trac. We use it with Subversion and PostgreSQL, but other options exists. For me especially good are wiki & timelime. This way we can easily document various things and see what others do.

Answer 6

Cola Real-Time Shared Editing

Answer 7

Any version control system, would be a great start :

• Git
• Subversion
• CVS
• Mercurial

Some websites offers free hosting of control systems for open source projects :

• Google Code
• Github
• Sourceforge

And maybe tools like Live Messenger and emails could help you ;-)

Answer 8

You might want to try CruiseControl for automatically building the project once something is checked into your source control system. That way you can see the fruits of your labour pretty quickly. If you put this on a server you can all access it means you all have access to the latest build as well